theHousePlanner

Property:

Planning & Listed
Buildings

Apart from development falling within
Permitted Development Rights, you will need to obtain Planning
Permission before you can build -more on Permitted
Development below.

As part of its Modernising Planning
initiative the Government publishes a consolidated list of statements
of national
planning policy at the Communities and Local Government website.
It includes details of Planning Policy Statements (PPS), Planning
Policy Guidance notes (PPGs), Minerals Policy Guidance Notes
(MPGs), Regional Planning Guidance Notes (RPGs), Departmental
Circulars, Parliamentary Answers etc.

Planning: Changes to Permitted Development Rights

Changes to the rules governing
Permitted Development which came in to force on 1st October 2008
will make life easier for householders planning extensions or
loft conversions. Around a quarter of the 330,000 planning applications
that would have been submitted in the year ahead, a number that
has increased steadily since prices started rising again in the
mid 1990s, will now be removed from the workload of local planning
departments under the new rules.

Permitted Development has been
with us since 1995 but the clause which tied the size of any
extension to the volume of the original property meant that a
typical property could only build a small rear extension or dormer
without the need for planning permission. Under the new rules
the size of the original house is no longer a factor. As long
as an extension falls within a set of clearly defined guidelines
it will be classed as a Permitted Development.

The most significant of those
guidelines are set out below:

Extensions

o Single storey rear extensions
to detached properties can be up to four metres deep and four
metres high.

o For attached properties,
and all extensions with two or more storeys, the maximum depth
is reduced to three metres.

o Multi storey extensions should
be no higher that the roofline of the existing property.

o Side extensions to be single
storey only, no more than four metres high and no wider than
half the width of the original property

In addition, the previous volume
caps on rear and side extensions have been removed. If a proposed
extension falls outside of these guidelines it will not necessarily
be refused permission but a full planning application will be
required.

Loft Conversions

o Dormers will not be permitted
to any roof plane fronting on to a highway

o No extension to be higher
than the ridge line of the existing property

o Dormers to be set back from
the eaves by a minimum of 20 cm.

The new guidelines do not make
any specific reference to one of the previously controversial
elements of a loft conversion; the raised gable end. As long
as they comply with the other criteria raised gables will be
permitted.

All of the measurements should
be taken from the 'Original Property' which for the purposes
of planning matters is taken to mean the property when it was
first built or on 1st July 1948 if it was built prior to that
date.

Further restrictions will remain
for alterations to Listed Buildings and buildings within conservation
areas. Local Authorities will still retain the right to alter
the guidelines at a local level by issuing Development Notices
or Article 4 Directions.

Building Regulation approval
will still be required for all extensions and loft conversions
and if the work falls within the scope of the Party Wall etc.
Act 1996 there will be an obligation to serve notice on any affected
neighbours.